First of all, the ethics commission is completely passive. It can act
only upon a complaint.

Second, the new lobbyist registration and disclosure provisions are
being handled by a city secretary's office whose staff has recently
been cut in half. One additional staff member will be added to deal
with a torrent of information.

Third, the check on council members' dealings with developers is
nothing more than other council members. It's easy for them to make deals with their fellow members to
get seconds for projects they want in their districts.

Ragland mentions an example from the past:

Case
in point: Back when the late James Fantroy was a council member, the
city attorney ruled that Fantroy had a conflict of interest in a
housing issue because his security company had a contract with the
developer. Fantroy recused himself from voting on the contract, but
council members still showed deference to his wishes on the project.

Ethics
reforms that depend on self-regulation rarely hold up under pressure.
And the ethics reforms themselves prove that pressure works in Dallas.
Originally, most of the council was deadset against the reforms, but
the mayor pressured ten of them into voting for the reforms in a straw vote
last week. By Monday, all but two voted for one reform, all but one for
another, and the third was passed unanimously.

Toward the end of Ragland's column comes the sad news that the city's
ethics commission doesn't even meet much.

The ordinance
takes effect on April 1. By then, we may even get the ethics commission
to wake up and hold a meeting. Somebody, other than the media, must
step up and provide more stringent oversight.